Parental Cognitive Stimulation During an Exploratory Task: Understanding Guided Play Through a Sociocultural Lens

• In Event: Friday Roundtable Session 3:05 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Parent Impact and Decisions on Early Care and Education (Table 3)

Abstract

Guided play offers the opportunity to develop scientific skills that allow children to explore their interests in a non-restricting fashion. We studied whether parental cognitive stimulation among young children (M = 5.57 years) in an exploratory task varied across a play continuum. Results indicated that parents who engaged in guided play employed more complex cognitively stimulating scaffolds when compared to parents that engaged in free play. We found that parents of non-Latine descent produced a higher level of cognitively stimulating techniques when compared to their counterparts. Preliminary results suggest that the assessments we utilized do not account for the rich developmental processes that Latine families experience. We conclude by commenting on the implications for the field.

Authors

• Rogelio Becerra Songolo, University of California - San Diego

• Alison G. Wishard Guerra, University of California - San Diego

• Shana R. Cohen, University of California - San Diego

• Monica Molgaard, University of California - San Diego

• Yan Jiang, University of California - San Diego

• Huilin Li, University of California - San Diego